Having just enjoyed a wonderful dream, Michelangelo
relates the story to his brothers. He tells
them that in his dream, a pelican martial arts master taught him a powerful new
special move (before being taken away by the King of Dinosaurs on his flying
saucer). The other Turtles tell Mikey
now is not the time to be talking about dreams… as they’re currently on a
rooftop battling Dogpound and a horde of Foot Soldiers.

Mikey is undeterred and insists that the special move the
pelican taught him in his dream could save the day. Dogpound promptly hammers Mikey into the
concrete. Leo tells everyone to focus
and charge Dogpound all at once.
Dogpound easily trounces the other three Turtles.

That’s when Mikey strikes with The Kick of the Pelican…
the move he learned in his dream. The
powerful kick sends Dogpound flying backward, knocking over the entire unit of
Foot Soldiers.

The fight over, the Turtles ask Mikey where he learned
that sweet kick. He reminds them for the
millionth time that it was in a dream.
In fact, he begins lecturing them that they should pay more attention to
their dreams; they might learn something.
Raph tells Mikey he actually learned a sweet move in one of his own
dreams, recently: The Fist of the Turtle.
Mikey is impressed and asks him to demonstrate. Raph does so by cramming Mikey headfirst
into an airduct.

Dogpound finally shows up in a Nick TMNT comic (as of
right now, he STILL hasn’t appeared in the IDW TMNT New Animated Adventures
series). Unfortunately, he’s kind of
reduced to a poor man’s Bebop and/or Rocksteady, getting humorously clobbered
by Michelangelo of all characters. Of
course, this was just a 6-page comedy strip, so it’s to be expected.

“Daydream” is probably the lesser of the two short strips
published in Nickelodeon TMNT #4, at least so far as the story and punchline
are concerned. In terms of art, though,
it’s the clear winner. All the Panini
artists thus far have been good and have a consistency between them I
appreciate, but looking at them more thoroughly, some really do prove to be
better than others.

Cosmo White does a great job on this strip, particularly
when it comes to character expressions.
While I don’t much care for the “Mikey with his tongue hanging out”
thing that for some reason won’t fucking go away, the characters are all
heavily emotive. Their faces might prove a bit too malleable for some, but I really like heavily expressive
art so long as it doesn’t make its strokes too broad. Nice layouts, too; the splash page covering
the Pelican Kick was nicely done.

Grade: C (as in, “Could the Turtles actually call the
police after defeating the mutants and Foot Soldiers for a change instead of
just walking away and getting a pizza?
It might help them out in the long run”)